Ask any good author what their story is about and you will almost certainly not get the plot (what happens in the story) but rather the themes (what the story is about). Take, for example, the recently released hit comedy Bridesmaids.  The story is not about the raunchy shenanigans that go into planning...

My daughter showed me a video about skin cancer on YouTube called “Dear 16-year-old me”.  It’s a great example of content that humanizes a difficult subject and effectively engages a target audience. At the very least, my 17-year old was watching it, sharing it, and talking about it along with a million...

I love infographics.  I especially like this one from Marketo because they use our own B2B Content Marketing stats in it, combined with some of their own research on content marketing. Now, all kidding aside, the rise of content marketing has nothing to do with stopping anything with traditional marketing....

At the heart of social media is the desire that every consumer has to talk about something interesting, compelling and relevant and to share that information with his or her friends. The question marketers must ask themselves is: “What makes my brand so interesting that people will want to talk about...

Are you feeling overwhelmed by all of your analytics? Last Friday I explained how to figure out the business goals for your website, assign dollar values and set up customized reports so you can view your key performance indicators (KPIs). Taking these steps is a great start, but what do you do with...

There’s been a ton of great discussion about content activities, methodologies and deliverables. For most of us, that makes up the bulk of our work. But if you don’t have a conceptual framework for those activities, I’d argue that you’re not really practising content strategy. Here are five ways to think...

How do you know if your content is hitting the mark? Not only does it need to get you on your prospects’ radar, but it ultimately needs to compel them to engage with you. To keep things simple, I suggest B2B marketers focus on three questions.Continue reading

Content marketing is hot right now. According to the B2B Content Marketing: 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report, 51% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budgets within the next year. That’s because publishing compelling content can help you attract customers, increase your...

“Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood” ~ Laurence Sterne Like courting a love interest, your content needs to show prospects you’re interested in more than just a quick sale. If you initiate conversation by talking about...

If you’re putting together a new content marketing strategy, you know how much work there is to do. With your attention pulled in so many directions, it’s surprisingly easy to forget about defining specific content requirements. Too many companies just set their employees loose to create articles or...

Your company has set up the Twitter profiles, added a blog to the website and customized a Facebook page. Now what? How do you find your “secret sauce,” the story that’s going to get attention from your target audience? Continue reading

One of the things I love about my job as the editor of this blog is that I get to work with – and read – thoughts from my favorite content marketers. I learn something new every day. We’re in the process of updating our website (lots more content coming your way in 2011!), and I re-visited all of the...